CEDAR CITY – When she first began attending college at Brigham Young University, Cory Call, a special education teacher at Canyon View Middle School, said she wanted to work in the special education field.

However, Call left college for a while after she got married and had children, and one of them, a son, was born six weeks early with Down syndrome. She said before her child with Down syndrome was born, she already knew she wanted to return to college, but she was not certain that special education was the right field for her.

"The experience I have had as a mom because of him … it helped me to understand that is where I want to be," Call said.

She said her students are often called 'special,' and many people use that as a generic label because they do not know what else to call them. However, she said, the word 'special' means so much more than that because her students "really are a gift."

"And when they do something or progress, I get goose bumps because, for me, that's about as good as it gets," she said.

Call talked about her approach to her 11 students this year who are part of a unit in the school referred to as "'severe." Those students have a variety of disabilities, but most of them are intellectual disabilities with an IQ of 70 or less. Students with intellectual disabilities may have other disabilities as well.

She said she follows the Common Core curriculum as she teaches them. Each child in her unit has an individualized education plan, which is tailored for each of them and is never identical to another student's.

The factors that influence a student's IEP are his or her disability, abilities and needs. The students are also given goals, and the curriculum is focused on progressing and mastering those goals. For instance, a student requiring occupational therapy may work on mastering a fine motor skill goal such as independently cutting on a straight line with a pair of scissors.

Call said each student also has an academic goal in math, science and language arts. She said when designing a student's IEP, she tries to create engaging lessons or learning experiences. The term "engaging" refers to a teaching strategy with which the individual child is able to connect and learn best.

She said each student's IEP is based on a test the student takes at the beginning of the school year that encompasses the subjects of math, reading and often a physical therapy goal as well. The result of that testing is called a benchmark so she has an idea of where the students are in their education process.

Conrad Aitken, principal at CVMS, said Call is close to completing her first year at his school, and she had taught at Enoch Elementary the previous year.

He described Call as being very devoted to her students. He said she considers her students' needs and collaborates with their parents.

He observed that some teachers for severely disabled students may focus on just keeping their students occupied, but Call genuinely tries to teach the children.

"I would put her in the top ten best special severe educators in the state," he said.

Aitken also said that Call has a "very sweet temperament," and is very patient with her students. He noted that he has never seen her out-of-sorts with her students as long as he has seen her at work.

Call said she is fortunate to be working with a total of seven para-educators — six women and one man — who assist her in teaching her students.

"I think if I were to ask them, they would say that they love each of these children in the class," she said. "You can't help but care for them."

She also said her son with Down syndrome is now 12, and she is able to teach him in her classroom, which she described as "fantastic."